I've often asked people who speak about the destruction of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah as horrendous what they think of the possibility that God rained down fire and brimstone upon them to prevent the extinction of the human race from earth by A.I.D.S.. It just might very well be the reason He had to let them be destroyed. God isn't just Good, He's Holy. That's WAY beyond good or moral, it's un-thinkable for any being BUT Him. Only He is Holy.
I didn't notice this post until this morning. Sorry! I wasn't trying to ignore your post.
There's two things here....
1. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to do with A.I.D.S. - at all. The disease is spread through sodomy, it isn't caused by it. There is no evidence that the human form of the disease existed at all prior to the early 1980s. Further, the virus has exactly zero chance of causing "the extinction of the human race from earth" under any circumstances whatsoever. Not even the H1N1 Influenza or Ebola viruses could do that. That just isn't the way viruses work.
2. Depending on the context, the word 'holy' can mean several things but in the context of God's character, it's a single word way of saying that God is perfectly righteous, wise, just, etc and is thus worthy of our complete devotion and worship. If you want to take that to mean its "beyond good and moral" then I can see that but the thing I want to make clear is that there is no such thing as being "suprarighteous" in the sense of being above or beyond righteousness. Such an idea has no meaning. In fact, the concept has the effect of rendering God unrighteous and unjust because it implies that the definition of the word 'righteous' does not apply to God, which is what it means to be unrighteous. Christians who teach such concepts, (often Calvinists) end up teaching that God is arbitrary which is the opposite of being just. Put simply, God cannot do anything at all and remain righteous. On the contrary, God is righteous because He acts rightly. For example, if God were to declare that murder was allowed on every fourth Thursday of the month, He would be unrighteous, by definition. The reason God doesn't do such things, isn't because He has arbitrarily decided what justice and righteousness are but because He is Life and acts in a manner consistent with His own nature. If you act in a manner that is proper to life, then you do not murder or steal or in some other way act in a manner that that negates, opposes or otherwise destroys either your own life or the lives of those around you. In short, if you act in a manner that is proper to life, you act righteously.
